【推荐1】For months, their adventure through China’s south-western Yunnan province had gone almost unnoticed. But last week, when images of a group of 15 Asian elephants walking through a residential(居民的) area appeared on social media, it immediately seized the imagination of the nation, stirring up considerable media interest and questions as to what caused their unusual journey.

The movement was so unusual that authorities sent as many as 360 people with 76 cars and nine drones(无人机) to track it. State TV has spent days following their every footstep. Chinese wildlife authorities have been struggling to understand why the elephants left their natural habitat last year. According to Xinhua, a group of 16 wild elephants began the journey in March 2020 to the north. In November, they arrived in Pu’er in Yunnan, where a female elephant gave birth to a baby, and settled there for five months. They then continued the walk on 16 April. A week later, two left the group, leaving 15 to continue their odyssey.

The appearance of the animals has not been warmly received by residents in Yunnan. Along the way, they have caused much destruction, eating whole fields of corn and ruining farm buildings. State broadcaster CCTV has estimated the damage to be at least 6.8m yuan ($1.07m). Fortunately, no human death has been reported so far.

Chinese experts said there had been other reports of elephants wandering into villages and harming crops in recent years. “Large-scale human engineering developments have changed the ‘islanding’ of elephant habitats,” said Zhang Li, a professor from Beijing Normal University. “The traditional zones between humans and elephants are gradually disappearing, and the chances of elephants’ facing humans naturally increase greatly.”

The wild elephant population in Yunnan is about 300, up from 170 in 1980, but the habitat area has decreased from 2,084 square km in 1976 to less than 500 square km in recent years.

【推荐2】Bronx Zoo

Excited to explore this z00 already? Well, save your dates and plan your trip to the US with Travel Triangle right away and let the kids within your joy. The Bronx Zoo is definitely one of the best places to visit in the USA. We are sure that you would have the best time ever!

The Size

The Bronx Zoo is among the biggest zoos in the US, measuring 265 acres or over 100 hectares. It is literally so big that you may find it difficult to explore it all in just a day. Not only is it big in terms of size but it’s the largest zo0 in the US by number of animals as well. As of 2020, it had 4,000 animals of over 600 species. Some of them include fennec foxes, bald eagles, collared lemurs and Komodo dragons.

Location

The Bronx zo0 in the USA is located at 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10460.

The Tickets Cost

Tickets to the z00 in the US cost $28 for children, $37 for adults (13 years and over). Entry for children aged two and under is free. You can also go on group tours led by trained expedition leaders. It costs $125 for a group of up to 5 people.

Open Time

Bronx Zoo is open from 10 am to 5 pm Monday—Friday and 10 am to 5.30 pm on weekends and holidays. All animal exhibits end half an hour before the park closes.

The Best Attractions

【推荐3】Now it seems that more and more animals are showing up in cities where we would not expect them to. But scientists have learned that some species do better in cities. Take peregrine falcons (游隼) for example. They use tall city buildings to make homes, man-made lighting to hunt at night, and warm air currents created when the sun beats down on city surfaces to fly with less effort.

Some animals adapt well to city life, and some do not. For example, squirrels (松鼠) do amazingly well living in cities, while wolves have never seemed to get the hang of it. Usually, animals that eat a lot of different things, called generalists, do much better in cities than specialists, which eat one specific kind of food. Smaller animals are also more likely to live in cities than bigger animals. Some people believe animals that do well in cities might be smarter than the ones that do not, but more research is needed on this.

Many animals have even learned cool tricks to live in cities, and these behaviors help them find more food or mates (伴侣), or avoid people. To learn about these behaviors, we use recording devices to spot animals, microphones to record their sounds, and tracking equipment to follow them. Scientists use many different tools to study what animals eat, how healthy they are, how they compete with each other, and more.

Humans are turning the planet into cities and farms, which does not leave many other places for most wildlife to live in. So, what can we do? At home, we can cover our garbage carefully because it is not good for wild animals. We can also plant some native plants that wildlife might like. Seeing animals in a city, we can give them space and watch them from far away. We could also try some creative things like green roofs where birds and insects can live in.

To do that, we need to know what kind of habitats different species need, and how to prevent human-wildlife conflicts. We still have a lot to learn.

【推荐1】Look at your modern TV, and you see nothing less than a technological miracle. Scientists began experimenting with the concept of television more than a century ago. But decades would pass before it was brought to the public at the 1939 World’s Fair. More time passed before TV sets were in stores—and even then, it took a while until most people had one.

During the 1950s, TVs were expensive, screens were small and the picture wasn’t always clear. Moreover, early programs were in black and white; color wasn’t in wide use until the mid-1960s. Viewers didn’t have a lot of choice, either. Instead of hundreds of channels to choose from, most cities offered only three or four.

Early TVs worked with the use of analog (模拟的) signals. Here’s how they worked: Using a giant transmission tower, the local television station sent those waves through the air. Antennas on the roofs of buildings and homes received those waves and transported the signal to the television sets inside. By 2009, TV stations replaced analog signals with digital signals, which is the standard used today.

Modern digital TV uses different information streams. For example, one stream is for the picture; another stream is for the audio. Pictures are created by basic units called pixels (像素). Your screen has tens of thousands of pixels. Basically, three colors—red, blue and green—form other colors in various combinations, and the picture is created from all the pixels together. Groups of bits are formed into larger units called bytes (字节), which are the link between the content you’re watching and your TV. Your digital smart TV has an interface that allows you to control all the functions. Basically, a smart TV is a computer, large monitor and receiver all in one package.

In the future, there will be more functions equipped in your cellphone and TV and thus offer you more choices. Whether the TV will be a screen for your cellphone is up to you.

【推荐2】A new study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health finds air pollution may negatively impact standardized test scores. Using data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, the researchers tracked 2.8 million public school students in North Carolina from 2001 to 2018 and measured their exposure to PM2.5 found in polluted air. While previous research has shown negative effects on academic performance, it has relied on relatively small or less representative samples. “The biggest strength of this study is that we tracked every student in North Carolina in those years, for the whole time period that they were in the public schools,” said Emma Zang, coauthor of the study.

The study also finds that test scores of ethnic minorities and girls are disproportionately (不成比例地) impacted by PM2.5 levels. “Females and ethnic minorities face sexism and racism,” said Zang. “There are a lot of policies that are not friendly towards them. So, when they’re exposed to the same level of air pollution, they don’t have the resources to lessen the negative influences.” More privileged populations, however, might have more resources that allow them to live in a better environment, such as in houses with air purifiers.

“The level of PM2.5 pollution in the US is relatively low, but students living in areas below the current air quality standard of annual PM2.5 concentration are still negatively impacted by air pollution when it comes to their test scores,” said Zang. “We should aim to strengthen the annual PM2.5 standard to better protect our children.”

Air pollution is known to contribute to disease and death, and it also negatively affects students’ academic performance even at low levels of pollution. The subsequent studies, the researchers said, would involve looking at whether the findings hold true in different areas, and also the reasons behind the ethnic and sexual differences.

【推荐1】Tower Bridge is a bascule bridge in London, over the River Thames. It is close to the Tower of London, which gives it its name. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as London Bridge, which is the next bridge upstream(在上游). It is one of five London bridges now owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, increased commercial(贸易的) development in the East End of London led to a requirement for a new river crossing downstream of London Bridge. A Special Bridge or Subway Committee was formed in 1876 to find a solution to the river crossing problem. It opened the design of the crossing to public competition. Over 50 designs were received. The judgment of the designs was surrounded by argument, and it wasn’t until 1884 that a design sent by Horace Jones was sanctioned.

Construction of the bridge started in 1886 and took about 8 years’ hard work of 432 construction workers. Over 70,000 tons of concrete were sunk into the river bed to support the construction. Over 11,000 tons of steel provided the framework(框架) for the towers and walkways. Horace Jones died in 1887, and another engineer took over the project. The bridge was opened in 1894.

The bridge sits almost directly above the Tower Subway, the world’s first underground tube railway (1870), which, until the bridge was opened, was the shortest way to cross the River Thames. A computer system was installed(安装) in 2000 to control the raising and lowering of the bascule. However, this has proved less reliable than expected, resulting in the bridge being stuck in the open or closed position on a number of occasions.

【推荐2】For the first time, scientists have grown plants in the moon soil (土壤) collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts. The scientists had no idea if anything would grow in the moon soil. They wanted to see if it could be used to grow food by the next generation of moon explorers.

Robert Ferl of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences was surprised with the results. He and other researchers planted small flowering plants in the moon soil returned from the Apollo missions. The good news was that all of the plants grew. The bad news was that after the first week, the moon soil stressed the plants so much that they grew slowly. Most of the moon plants were small or not fully developed.

The longer the soil was exposed (暴露) to solar wind on the moon, the worse the plants seemed to do. The soil collected by the Apollo 11 mission was the least helpful for growth. It was exposed a couple billion years longer to the elements, the scientists said.

Simon Gilroy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison wasn’t part of the study. He said, “This is a big step forward to know that you can grow plants.” Gilroy added, “The real next step is to go and do it on the surface of the moon.”

Moon soil is full of glass particles (微粒). They got in the Apollo lunar landers and wore down the moonwalkers’ spacesuits. One solution might be to use younger spots on the moon for digging up soil. The environment also could be changed by adding special nutrient (养分) mixtures or man-made lighting.